Posts Tagged ‘Edwin Encarnacion’

How was your week

Posted: December 24, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in sports, Uncategorized
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It looks as though the Cleveland Indians gave their fans something they wanted this Christmas season. As it’s being reported that Edwin Encarnacion has agreed to a 3 year $60  million dollar deal with Cleveland. The deal also includes a 4th option year at $25 million dollars or the Indians have a buyout option for $5 million dollars. Encarnacion hit 42 home runs and led the American League in RBI’s with 127. Encarnacion is a career .266 hitting and has 310 career home runs. With the Toronto Blue Jays last season Encarnacion played 75 games at 1st base and was the DH 86 times. Encarnacion games played should look very similar with the Indians as he’ll share time with Carlos Santana at 1st base and as the teams DH. Encarnacion will fil the spot of Mike Napoli who is still on the free agent market, but there have been reports the Texas Rangers are interested in his services.

It looks as though the Atlanta Braves have decided that outfielder Ender Inciate will be part of there rebuilding plan. The Braves sign Inciate to a 5 year extension worth $30.525 million dollars. There is also an option for a 6th year which the Braves can choose to buy out for $1.025 million dollars. Inciate is 26 years old and 2016 was his first season with the Braves after playing two seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Inciate hit .291 with 24 doubles, 7 triples and 3 home runs. Inciate stole 16 bases while being caught 7 times. Inciate played 120 games in centerfield last season while also playing 10 games in leftfield. Inciate has played all three outfield positions in his career and had a .991 fielding percentage in centerfield last season. Inciate names came up quite a bit at the trade deadline last season and now that he’s signed to a very team friendly deal the question becomes. Will he be with the Braves long term? Or will other teams be even more interested in him now that he comes with some control?

Remember the beginning of the 2016 season when Jose Bautista said he wouldn’t give the Blue Jays a hometown discount and he would be looking for $25 to $30 million dollars a season in his new contract. Well after making those demands Bautista pretty much went out and stunk it up. Bautista played in 116 games due to injuries and hit just .234. His power numbers where also down as he managed just 22 home runs after hitting 40 and 35 the two seasons before. Bautista is 36 years old and you have to wonder if it was the injuries that caused the down season or are his skills in decline. The Blue Jays did offer Bautista the qualifying offer of $17.2 million dollars after last season, but he didn’t sign it. There are reports out now that Bautista may take a 1 year deal, but would like to get more than the $17.2 million dollars that the qualifying offer would’ve given him. Bautista isn’t a great defender; he has a career fielding percentage of .982 as an outfielder. You have to wonder how he might hold up with a National League team where he wouldn’t have the benefit of getting that break from fielding as a DH. Bautista is one of the bigger names left out on the free agent market; so it will be interesting to see where he signs and how much he signs for.

Are you ready for the National Football League to take over your Saturday? There are 12 games on the schedule for Saturday. There are also two games on Sunday and then the Monday night game. Of course there was the Thursday night game where the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New York Giants 24-19.

New York Jets head coach Todd Bowles has rejoined the team in New England for today’s game. Bowles was admitted to the hospital on Friday with an undisclosed illness and it was unknown if he would even make it to today’s game. Bowles didn’t travel with the team Friday after being hospitalized and it was being reported the team initially feared Bowles suffered a heart attack. Doctors have determined that was not the case. Bowles arrived at the team hotel Saturday morning and will travel with the team to Gillette Stadium for today’s game against the Patriots. The Jets said it was still unclear whether Bowles would coach the team from the sideline or the coaches booth. Assistant head coach Mike Caldwell ran the walk through practice Friday at the team facility and is on standby to handle head coaching duties if Bowles hadn’t been able to make it to the game.Bowles is the third NFL head coach to suffer an in-season medical emergency. Broncos head coach Gary Kubiak experienced a complex migraine condition that forced him to miss one game, and Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer missed one game to undergo emergency eye surgeries.

In that Jets/Patriots game today it looks as though wide receiver Michael Floyd will be active for the Patriots. Floyd was released by the Arizona Cardinals on December 14th; two days after he received a DUI. Floyd is facing six charges: obstructing a roadway; DUI impaired to the slightest degree; DUI blood alcohol content above 0.08, 0.15 and 0.20; and failure to obey a police officer. All charges are Class 1 misdemeanors. If convicted Floyd could face jail time. There was some controversy to the Patriots signing Floyd after the video of his DUI came out. Floyd was asleep at the wheel of his vehicle while it was still in gear and was very unresponsive to the police officers instructions in the video. This will be Floyd’s first game action with the Patriots. Floyd is a free agent after this season; so he has a couple of games to prove to teams that he can still produce on the field. He’ll also have to convince teams that his off the field troubles are behind him.

On Thursday night the Boston Bruins beat the Florida Panthers 3-1 on the ice. Now it seems like this is just a normal Thursday night NHL game with Boston getting a win, but when you look into the scoring it’s not. On the Panthers only goal of the night the assist went to Jaromir Jagr. That assist broke a tie Jagr was in for 2nd place on the NHL’s all time leading scores list. Jagr now has 1888 career points in his NHL career. Jagr trails just Wayne Gretzky on the list, but he trails by quite a bit. “The Great One” has 2857 career points and at 44 years of age I don’t think Jagr will be around long enough to catch Gretzky.

Jagr started his NHL career with the Pittsburgh Penquins where he played from 1990 to 2001. Then Jagr was with the Washington Capitals from 2001 to 2004. Jagr then went to the New York Rangers from 2004 to 2008. Jagr who was born in Kladno, Czechoslovakia decided after the 2008 season that he wanted to return home to play. Jagr signed with the Avangard Omsk of the KHL and played there from 2008 to 2011. Jagr returned to the NHL in 2011 signing a one year deal with the Philadelphia Flyers. In 2012 Jagr signed with the Dallas Stars. Jágr was traded to the Boston Bruins in exchange for two prospects and a draft pick. In 2013 Jagr signed with the New Jersey Devils. Jagr was with the Devils until February of 2015 when he was traded to the Florida Panthers for a 2nd and a 3rd round pick in the 2015 draft. Jagr is still with the Panthers.

Who knows how many more seasons Jagr will play in the NHL, but he’s a had long well traveled Hall of Fame career.

You can listen to Sports Time Radio live on BlogTalkRadio.com, but you can also listen to the podcast any time you want at TuneIn.com

I’m on Twitter @Burketime

Merry Christmas

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Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: October 5, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in Auto Racing, baseball, basketball, Uncategorized
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With Week 4 of the NFL in the books here’s the update on our pick contest. Schaumburg Stu, Dan the Man and I all ended Week 4 with an 8-7 record while Mr. Fantasy may have set a record for his 5-10 record. Overall Schaumburg Stu is holding the lead at 37-26. Dan the Man is one game behind at 36-27. I’m in 3rd place at 31-32 while Mr. Fantasy slipped deeper into the cellar with a record of 28-35. Let’s see how Week 5 goes.

Could the MLB playoffs have gotten off to a better start? The Toronto Blue Jays hosted the Baltimore Orioles in the American League wild card game yesterday. The Blue Jays sent Marcus Stroman to the mound for the game and the Orioles countered with Chris Tillman. The Blue Jays got on the scoreboard first on a solo home run by Jose Bautista to lead off the bottom of the 2nd inning. In the top of the 4th inning Adam Jones got the first hit for the Orioles to lead off the inning. Jones went to 2nd on a ground out and then there was a liner to centerfield for the 2nd out. Then Major League home run leader Mark Trumbo gave the Orioles the lead when he hit a 2-run home run to leftfield. With one out in the bottom of the 5th inning Michael Saunders hit a ground rule double to left followed by a Kevin Pillar double to right, but some how Saunders only advanced to 3rd base. Ezequiel Carrera singled to centerfield to drive Saunders in and tie the game at 2-2. That ended Tillman’s night and the scoring for 6 innings. Brian Duensing was on the mound to start the bottom of the 11th inning for the Orioles. Duensing struck out Carrera for the 1st out of the inning and was then removed from the game for Ubaldo Jimenez. Devon Travis greeted Jimenez with a single. Josh Donaldson followed with a single of his own and Travis advanced to 3rd base. Edwin Encarnacion was up next and hit a 3-run walk off home run to leftfield for a 5-2 Blue Jays win.

Francisco Liriano picked up the win for the Blue Jays in relief while Jimenez gets the loss. Stroman went 6 innings giving up 2 runs on 4 hits while striking out 6. After Stroman the Blue Jays bullpen didn’t give up a run over 5 relief innings. Brett Cecil pitched 1/3rd of an inning, Joe Biagini pitched 2/3rd of an inning, Jason Grilli pitched an inning, Roberto Osuna pitched an 1 1/3rd innings then it was Liriano who pitched the final 1 2/3rds. Tillman lasted just 4 1/3rd innings for the Orioles giving up 2 runs on 4 hits while walking 1 and striking out 4. The Orioles had the best bullpen in baseball and it showed last night as they matched the Blue Jays outing up zero’s for 6 1/3rd innings. Mychal Givens followed Tillman and pitched 2 1/3rd innings. Then it was Donnie Hart for 1/3rd of an inning, Brad Brach for 1 1/3rd innings, Darren O’Day pitched 1 2/3rd innings before Duensing worked his 1/3rd of an inning. Jimenez didn’t get anyone out; so he didn’t pitch any innings. What you’ll notice about the Orioles pitching is that closer Zach Britton wasn’t used in the game. Britton had 47 saves and an ERA of 0.54 in the regular season.

Donaldson and Carrera where the only players with multiple hits in the game; they had 2 hits apiece. The Orioles recorded just 4 hits in the game.

The Blue Jays now advance to play the Texas Rangers starting Thursday night at Globe Life Park in Arlington Texas. The Blue Jays haven’t announced a starting pitcher for the game, but the Rangers are going with Cole Hamels as their Game 1 starter.

Can the National League wild card game match the excitement of last nights AL wild card game? The San Francisco Giants are going with Madison Bumgarner while the New York Mets have Noah Syndergaard on the mound tonight. Based on the starting pitchers it looks like we’ll get a pitchers duel, but the games don’t always go that way. Will we get that 1-0 or 2-1 game that people might think we’re going to get or will we see a 6-5 or a 9-8 game. While Syndergaard is still putting together his post season resume we’ve seen Bumgarner pitch in these situations time and time again. Will Bumgarner’s experience lead the Giants to a victory or will Syndergaard start to build that resume with a win for the Mets tonight.

With the NBA regular season starting at the end of the month fans of the Philadelphia 76ers finally got to see Joel Embiid play in a game. Embiid missed the first two seasons of his NBA career with foot injuries. In 13 minutes last night Embiid scored 6 points, grabbed 4 rebounds and blocked 2 shots in the 76ers 92-89 win over the Boston Celtics. In an odd twist for the 76ers Embiid made his debut the same day this season #1 overall pick Ben Simmons had foot surgery. Simmons is expected to be out a minimum of 8 weeks, but there have been reports that it will be longer than that.

The NHL season is even closer to starting than the NBA season and the Tampa Bay Lighting are still without one of their top players. Nikita Kucherov is a restricted free agent and is not in training camp with the start of the season a little less than two weeks away. Kucherov’s agent is Scott Greenspun and reports are he’s told Tampa Bay’s general manager Steve Yzerman that Kucherov will not show up until he gets a new deal. Kucherov is just 23 years old and was the Lighting’s leading scorer last season. Kucherov had 66 points on 30 goals and 36 assists. He was also the Lighting’s leading scorer in the playoffs with 19 points on 11 goals and 8 assists. Even though he hasn’t been in traing camp with hos teammates Kucherov has been on the ice as he played for Team Russia in the World Cup of Hockey.

NASCAR has moved into the 2nd round of The Chase and that means that the field of drivers was cut from 16 to 12. The 4 drivers who where eliminated from The Chase where Chris Buescher, teammates Jamie McMurray and Kyle Larson as well as Tony Stewart. Stewart is in his last season in NASCAR and there where a lot of fans who where hoping to see him go deep into The Chase. The 2nd round of The Chase kicks off Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway with the Bank of America 500. Will we see one of the 12 remaining Chase drivers get a win and automatically move into the 3rd round or will someone outside of The Chase find their way into victory lane.

Listen to Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com or find the podcast any time you want at TuneIn.com

You can find me on Twitter @Burketime